“Both a 'political religion' and a 'religious state' are nothing more than monstrous structures, which defile both the idea of law and the idea of religion” : Interview with Ruhi Demiray

Ruhi Demiray is a scholar working on political and legal philosophy. He is particularly interested in Human Rights Theories, the Rule of Law and the State, as well as Kant’s political-legal philosophy. He is currently an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Philipp Schwartz Initiative Research Fellow and a British Academy Newton Advanced Fellow at the Department of Philosophy of the University of Siegen. He holds a Ph.D. in political science from Middle East Technical University (Turkey) and held visiting positions at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Keele University. He had worked as a faculty member at Kocaeli University in Turkey between 2011 and 2016. On 1st September 2016, he was dismissed from his position via a statutory decree by Erdogan’s cabinet. The reason expressed for his dismissal was his alleged affiliation with terrorist organizations working against Turkish government and state. The only ground for this accusation itself was that he was one of the signatories of the „Peace Declaration” criticizing the cruel operations in the south-eastern (dominantly Kurdish) part of the country in 2015 and pledging for a humane and peaceful path in dealing with the Kurdish-Turkish demands.